Property investor loans grow despite APRA’s 10% cap

Lending to property investors is consistently marking above the 10% growth ceiling which APRA, the banking regulator, has earlier demanded.

The Reserve Bank of Australia said in its latest data that lending to property investors grew by 0.8% in May and 10.4% year-on-year. Moreover, the central bank said housing credit was up 7.2%, close to its fastest pace since 2010.

APRA was prompted to introduce tighter lending conditions which include cutting discounts on investment loans. This new move by APRA came after the country’s investment property lending and soaring property prices continued to grow above 10%.

The latest figures reveal that the CBA and Westpac both have property investment loans rising 9.9% and 10%, respectively, year-on-year in May.

Meanwhile, ANZ, also a big four bank, marked its property lending to be just above the 10% ceiling - up 10.6% in May. The NAB had the most aggressive annual lending growth out of the big four with 14.1%.

Non-major lender Suncorp also saw its mortgage book grow by 11.6%, but it is Macquarie which saw the highest jump at a whopping 86.8% over the year.

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